UK Constitutional Law Association
In the wake of the Mossack Fonseca affair, there have been calls for London to impose “direct rule” on some of the British Overseas Territories which are used for offshore financial purposes.
This blog post does not take a position on the merits of this proposal. Instead, it seeks to highlight two constitutional points which arise in this regard. First, the Territories’ powers of self-government are already relatively circumscribed in legal terms. Second, there is no developed set of doctrines determining when it might be appropriate for the British Government to intervene more closely in the Territories’ governance.
The Territories and their Constitutional Position
The Territories are the last remnants of the former British Empire. There are 14 of them, and they are listed in Schedule 6 of the British Nationality Act 1981. They comprise:
- Anguilla
- Bermuda
- The British Antarctic Territory
- The British Indian Ocean Territory
- The Cayman Islands
- The…
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